Claim: Opposition journalists sentenced for blasphemy

Claim: Opposition journalists sentenced for blasphemy

Newsweek claims two opposition journalists sentenced to two years for blasphemy

Hikmet Cetinkaya (left) and Ceyda Karan (right)

On 29 April 2016, Newsweek published a news story about the imprisonment of two opposition journalists of Cumhuriyet daily, in which it was claimed that the journalists were sentenced for “insulting religious values.”

‘Karan and Cetinkaya were sentenced to two years in jail on Thursday for “insulting religious values.”,’ said Newsweek.

As a matter of fact, journalists Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Cetinkaya have been convicted with fomenting "hatred and enmity in the people via means of the press" through publishing the Charlie Hebdo cover depicting the Prophet Muhammad in their columns, not for insulting religious values.

On the contrary, 'The court ruled for the acquittal of the journalists on charges of “insulting people’s religious values” on the grounds that the criminal factors had not been constituted,’ read another report by Hurriyet Daily News.

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